Field
Various features relate to biometric authentication within wireless ad hoc networks such as networks composed of mobile computing devices.
Background
A wireless ad hoc network is a decentralized wireless network that does not rely on pre-existing infrastructure or central managing device such as routers. Rather, each node in the network participates in routing by forwarding data for other nodes. A wireless ad hoc personal network is a wireless ad hoc network composed of personal devices such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, etc. Such networks may have a relatively sophisticated primary device such as a smartphone or tablet along with various secondary personal devices such as smartwatches, smartglasses, smartclothing, etc., that are relatively less sophisticated and capable than the primary device.
Primary devices such as smartphones or tablets may be provisioned with embedded biometric sensors that are relatively reliable and sophisticated such as fingerprint sensors to facilitate authentication of the user of the primary device for various purposes such as consumer purchases or other financial transactions, secure content access, secure activation and control, etc. Sophisticated biometric sensors are typically not provided within secondary devices such as smartwatches, smartglasses or smartclothing because of small form factors, cost considerations, battery longevity considerations or other practical reasons. Nevertheless, secondary devices may require user authentication for various applications such as consumer purchases. For example, it may be desirable to allow a user to make modest commercial purchases merely by waving a smartwatch over a retail scanner without requiring the user to authorize and authenticate the transaction with a more cumbersome smartphone.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of an ad hoc personal network 100 having a smartphone 102 as the primary device and a smartwatch 104 and pair of smartglasses 106 as secondary paired devices. In this example, the smartphone 102 is in communication with a cellular network via a base station 108 using wireless signals in accordance with a technology such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE.) The smartphone 102 is in communication with the smartwatch 104 and the smartglasses 106 via a local wireless transmission protocol such as Wireless Universal Serial Bus (USB) or Bluetooth™. The smartphone 102 is equipped to authenticate the user of the smartphone using fingerprint-based biometric authentication (using a fingerprint sensor, not shown.) The smartwatch 104 is equipped to authenticate the user using a less reliable motion-based biometric authentication (such as by using an accelerometer, not shown, equipped to detect a unique gesture made by the user wearing the smartwatch.) The smartglasses 106 are equipped to authenticate the user using facial image-based biometric authentication (such as by employing a digital camera, not shown), which is also generally less reliable than fingerprint authentication. FIG. 1 also illustrates an automated teller machine (ATM) 110 that the user seeks to obtain funds from using the smartwatch 104. Since the motion-based authentication provided by the smartwatch is not sufficiently reliable, the ATM would typically require the user to authenticate and authorize the transaction by using a debit card and entering a passcode into a keypad of the ATM, which can be inconvenient for the user, particularly if the passcode is hard to remember, and indeed would negate the convenience of using the smartwatch to trigger the transaction. Alternatively, the ATM might be programmed to accept the relatively unreliable gesture-based authentication of the smartwatch, which would be more convenient for the user but which might permit a thief to obtain funds using a stolen or spoofed smartwatch merely by replicating the authentication motion.
There is a need to provide convenient and reliable authentication for use with secondary devices within an ad hoc network of primary and secondary devices.